ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the possible rationale of this non-regulation approach. It shows how specific frames and, hence, problem or conflict solutions become crucial in this form of governance of religious difference in order to explain the different consequences of non-regulation policies in the four countries. Greece has no general law or decree regulating the wearing of headscarves. In Western Thrace, the Greek region with an autochthonous Turkish Muslim minority, the headscarf is allowed in all public and private institutions. The tolerant but non-regulatory countries share one common feature which is decisive for the regulation of the accommodation of religions and the governance setting of non-regulation, namely a close relation between the state and the churches and/or the dominance of a particular church. In Austrian headscarf debates, the right to religious expression is closely related to the country’s institutionalized model of pluralistic inclusion of religions in the public realm by stressing the recognition and equal treatment of Islam.
